"BE AN INSTANT EXPERT," the top cover of this Time Life book about the Bible states. It's a fairly routine retelling of the complete Bible story, without any taking away from the story. Milt Gross photo.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Everything you need to know about The Bible to be a complete, accurate telling of the tale.

Not particularly exciting, but accurate. It does contain lots of drawings and paintings as illustrations.

I checked for incidents often dealt with as fiction, including the pertinent issues of the resurrection of Christ, various miracles, and stories from the book of Revelation. I found them to be correct in terms of how basic Evangelicals view those happenings.

What I didn't find was any particular reason to spend $19.95, the price on the back cover, $11.35 for this paperback on Amazon.com, or, also on Amazon.com $9.47 new and $12.62 used. There are lots of books "out there" about the Bible, including the Bible itself.

The only feature in this book not in others are the drawings and paintings throughout. One, for example, is a painting by an unknown artist titled "Samson relaxes while Delilah prepares her scissors." If you're looking for such drawings and paintings, then by all means buy this book.

I'm not quite sure why Time Life published it, unless it is because there are always customers for good religious books. And this is a good religious book. Everything you need to know about The Bible is an accurate summary of the Bible, but no more than others. Except for the artwork, this is not a book I'd recommend purchasing.